On The Verandah

A Trip to Australis

It was the teen years … I was living next to a place called Bukit Baru ( New Hill ). It was just a slight incline … and would have taken a person 10 minutes simply to walk to the top. It was a housing area of single unit … ground floor bungalows.  Around that raised ground … in a perimeter that encircled it … were villages … with homes built with wood … some of them on stilts. And beyond that … was the wetlands … where farmers raised crops and vegetables.

 

My place was at the eastern part … in a village … that was called Paya Ikan … meaning a swamp of fish. The school that we went to … was at the southern part … and I guess we boys who lived in the area … and were at the same school … simply gathered together … in the evenings … and weekends. I don't recall that we gathered to catch fish or birds … or even play a sport … in our spare time. But we gathered to chat … about everything … school teachers … other students … movies … our family … and so forth.

 

There were about 8 �" 10 of us … who gathered on a regular basis … either on the verandah … at my house … or at Dollah's place … also on the verandah. It was a practice of speech decorum. We would speak of all manner of issues … our dreams … stories … and sometimes enter … into discourses on issues … about politics … movie stars … singing artists … popular trends … styles … and so forth. And always … the communication … rested fairly on saying the right thing. No one tolerated any bias or prejudices.

 

We were also growing up to be men … that distant achievement … that found its way into our conversations … whether it was about that Tarzan movie … Cowboys … secret agents … law and order … and so forth. We raised our admiration openly … flaunted our adoration for it … and became in some way identified with the experience. The one exception to that was Dollah … as I recall … he never made any association with someone else that way.

 

Dollah was actually staying at his grandfather's place. I never met his parents … and he never volunteered to speak of them. He was a tough kid … muscular on account of the work … at the grandfather's orchard … at the back of the house … and had a deep voice. He never spoke out of place … was always thoughtful in his speech … and carried a trace of the right and wrong of things. He was a deeply passionate person … and a good rugby player at school.

 

One time the lady who lived behind my house … had wandered off … across the padi fields … and into the wooded swamp at the east end of the village. The entire village came around … and they organized a search for her … with lighted torches … all the way into the night. They came back empty handed … and there were all manner of talk about ghosts … like an Eros … who carry away pretty women.

 

She returned all by herself the next day … and I told the gang about it. It was Dollah who volunteered some information about it. In his slow thoughtful manner … he spoke of a ghost called the Buniyan … in Malay folklore.  In the translation based on my insights … it would translate as ghost of the tree ...  who would carry away the woman he's in love with … and go deep into the forest … where nobody can find them. It was his way apparently of preserving his love … without losing it to the pleasures of the physical world … that threatens to take from man … his love.

 

It reminds me today … of the way we boys … spoke of our heroes … and the arguments we will get into … because someone had got himself into his head … that he was the hero himself. Its the way … we would defend that hero … as faultless … and was the shining beacon that we were aspiring to be. I guess all of us felt that way about our fathers as well … and would defend his honor with all possible arguments in support of him.

 

How does a common trait in all of us … of the need to hide our love before it is lost … translate into the decision making of a mother … who leaves her home … walks into a swamp land … stays there the whole night … in a state of trance … and then come to her senses the following day … and returns to the home? She apparently had no recollection of what happened. The last she said she remembered was … being at the kitchen in her home … and hearing a voice from the swamp call to her.

 

Dollah went on to enroll in an agricultural college … after school … and took to employment with an agriculture development organization … with links to the government. He became separated from his wife … and thereafter … found a way … to befriend the ladies from time to time … for companionship. We met recently … in the year 2000. Simply ran into one another … in a cafe. It was a good meeting … we were both moist in the eyes. Went for some dinner … beer … and eventually joined two Australian hitchhikers at the table.

 

It broke into a raucous evening of joke telling … quips … smart a*s remarks … and a night of laughter … that lasted all the way to about 4.00am. I think it was the one time … I saw Dollah laugh so much … especially when one of the Australian girls had … her hands around my throat … in a mock strangulation. We sent the girls back to their hotel … and said goodnight. They were staying in Malacca another day … and Dollah suggested that he may be able to accompany them.

 

He dropped me off at my place and on the way … I joked with him about getting lucky. He simply pushed it away … like its just another day. I see in my insights … the original suggestions of the world's beginning … that is referred to … in the stars … as the Australis. In my mind … its like a tree … that spreads its canopy over the Indonesian … Polynesian … and Samoan islands. And sometimes … I find it linked to my obsessions about life … the way a Buniyan may carry his love  interest deep into the forest … away from civilization. Its a tale that awaits its redemption.